Postal worker Phil Chapman, 38, was looking out his York hotel window while on the phone to a friend when a panther-like beast emerged from the bushes at around 8pm on August 24.

The stunned dad-of-two quickly hung up the phone to get video of the black creature pacing through the field before disappearing back into bushes.

The shadowy figure – which Phil insists was “way too big” to be a pet cat or dog – can be seen walking through the field in his grainy mobile phone footage.

Phil said: “I was in a room at the front of the hotel on the first floor talking to my friend on the phone.

“There is a field opposite with lots of rabbits so I was watching them bobbing about while chatting and the next minute this thing came out of the hedgerow.

“I spent a split second thinking ‘is that what I think it is?' but that's all it took for me to know it was a big black cat."

MERCURY

SHOCK: Phil couldn't believe his eyes when he spotted the mystery creature

“It was way too big to be a domestic cat”

Phil Chapman

Phil said the cat "looked very relaxed".

He added: “It was way too big to be a domestic cat and I wondered for a bit if someone was walking a really big dog but there was nobody around and its movements were so cat-like.”

Phil, who has two kids Chloe, 17, and Dylan, 12, is staying at the Redbeck Motel in Wakefield, Yorkshire, as he is in the process of moving homes.

Now Phil thinks he may have stumbled upon the “Beast of Ossett” – with several sightings over the years of the supposed nocturnal feline that prowls through Yorkshire woodlands dating back as far as 1999.

Since filming his “big cat”, Phil has done some research on the beast and hopes he has found “another piece of the puzzle”.

MERCURY

WAY TOO BIG: Phil said the creature moved like a cat and was too big to be a domestic pet

GETTY

SCARY: Brits are terrified big cats like Panthers are roaming the countryside

He said: “I wouldn't normally share something like this because I don't like being the centre of attention but it is just so fascinating.

“I know the camera is a bit shaky. I wasn't scared because I was far enough away but I was just so shocked - and it's exciting.